This is a long post so bear with me. The more experience I get at 2/5 the more I am realizing it is a potential gold mine in ways that 1/2 could never be. I read a post awhile ago in this thread on the differences between 1/2 and 2/5 and this really stuck out to me (I read this long before even taking a shot at 2/5):

I didn't know what he meant at the time, but it is starting to become more clear to me. In my roughly 30 hours of experience at 2/5 I have picked up on the fact that most tables are very loose and somewhat aggresive preflop with most of the table willing to VPIP $30 in with horrible RIO hands while OOP. With effective stacks averaging 200 BB's it seems everyone thinks "Eh, I've got plenty of implied odds to make a loose call" which causes the rest of the table to call.

Segue to the next step, there is a lot more 3! and squeezing at 2/5, which is natural and makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is the manner in which people choose to squeeze. Why I think 2/5 will yield a higher win-rate for me than 1/2 is due to a) deeper stacks and b) people employing aggressive tactics that are good in theory but executed at inopportune times and c) people playing poorly in 3! pots (combination of A and B) either folding too easily or continuing with a dominated range.

Figuring out the minimum range required to profitably 4! here will yield enormous returns to my win rate (I think? - unless I am not thinking about this the right way).

OTTH,

Effective stacks of $1000. Table is playing 7 handed right now.

V1 is in the BB. Looks to be mid-20's and has a bit of a gamble in him. I've observed him 3! a handful of times and call 3! a handful of times (no showdowns). My read on him is more qualitative in nature but my read is that he uses aggression to mask his weaker range but that he likely 3! and calls 3! with hands that are too weak to profitably do so.

An hour earlier I opened KK to $25 UTG, MP called, V re-raised to $100 from the SB, hero 4! to $325 and V tank-folded claiming he had AKs. I don't know if I believe him, but my image was very snug at the time.

V2 is UTG and was the primary target for the hand. He's been felted once, has a VPIP around 50% and has been observed open raising and 3! preflop with hands as bad as 53s, 75o, etc. hitting some miracle two pairs and generally being an unpredictable wild card.

Hero is UTG+1 and has been playing very tight. I had my stack around $1300 a few hours earlier but a combination of being card dead most of the night and making some tough laydowns via bet/folding has probably caused my image to lose some of its luster.

The Action

V2 straddles to $10 UTG
Hero raises to $35 with K9

My primary intention was to isolate V2, with consideration given to V1 potentially calling OOP with a weaker hand and check/folding to my c-bet on good flops. Winning the $17 uncontested would also be a nice outcome.

MP calls $35
HJ calls $35
BTN calls $35
V1 raises to $180 from the SB

Hero's options:

1. Fold
2. 4!/Fold to $500
3. 4!/Call a Shove

The sizing of V1's "squeeze" seemed a little weak to me. With $150 already in the pot, he is only making it $150 more, offering me 2.3:1 odds. He will also be OOP and if I call there is a good chance at least one more player calls. Villain looks somewhat uncomfortable like he much prefers a fold but Hero is having a hard time mustering the courage to 4! here.

Further, V should know my range is pretty snug, especially UTG. We already had a similar hand where he ended up folding AKs to my 4!, so I think my 4! would carry a lot of pull here.

So the question is how should I be thinking about this situation? If I think there is at least a 50% chance that V is squeezing light here and will fold to a 4!, what is the minimum range I would need to make this 4!?

This is what I mean about villains making poor decisions regarding dead money. V is likely thinking on Level 1 here "Wow, there is 30 BB's of dead money out there. If I just put out a nice sized raise, I'll probably take this pot down!"

But he should consider Level 2, "Okay so the original raiser is UTG, hasn't played many hands tonight and has only shown down winners thus far. My hand is probably too weak to call, so I should either raise or fold, but I need a really strong hand to raise UTG's likely strong open."

If I do 4! here and V only calls (horrible), I should expect to see an Ace or King on the flop ~40% of the time (I think) and can shove when checked to. If he check/folds in those situations, I should be winning 50% of the time preflop and 20% uncontested (0.5 * 0.4) on A or K flops. This is where I am kind of losing my focus and what I should be thinking about.

Also, one final point. If V does shove over my 4!, there would be ~$1610 in the pot with hero getting 3.2:1 odds on a call. I think I would need ~24% equity to make that call profitable. Equilab says K9s has 26.4% equity vs. a range of TT+ which should make calling the 5! +EV correct?

I thought my hand was just a little too weak here. I think if I had KT I would have ended up making the 4! re-squeeze. Giving V a little wider range of 88+ and giving Hero KTs yields equity of 33.9% so it seems like this really comes down to how wide is V's squeeze range which should allow us to determine our minimum range. I think it may be KTs but I'm not sure.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! This hand piqued my interest so bad I had to write it out at 6am as soon as I got home.

Good post.

Some other considerations for 4-betting light in this spot:

Do you have any tells (bet sizing/whatever) that could give away the actual strength of your hand?

Is V is a pro/semi-pro/grinder (these people are pretty easy to spot, IMO)?

Is V tilting?

This would be your second 4-bet against this villain. 4-bets are pretty rare in live poker. Is he going to 'believe' a second time? Does V think that you are capable of putting the 4th bet in with something less than AA/KK?

The first mistake is raising with K9s pf. You don't appear to understand even some of the basics of playing deeper. The deeper the game, the tighter your EP opening range needs to be. My suggestion if you are in the process of moving up to 2/5 is to buy in for about 70BB to start. Add to 100BB once you have reads on all the villains. Don't go higher until you think through the implications of playing deeper.

The villain puts you on a tight range in a game where he doesn't expect you to fold pf. He 3bets smaller than you expect. Both are signs that his range doesn't extend much past KK+ if he's a thinking player. If he is just level 1, then you can group in QQ and AK and a smattering of other hands. Run K9 against that range pf. How do you stand? After that, start playing around with flops with ace high, king high, etc. What is your equity there? If you have an advantage, how likely is it that he'll pay out with a weaker hand?

In short, fold pf to the straddle, fold pf to the 3 bet.

Trying to exploit a 3!/f range in nofoldem holdem is, ah, creative.

It is often a mistake to look at somewhat undersized 3 bets as weak. A lot of villains habitually undersize these bets because of some combination of not realizing just how much money is in the pot, thinking any preflop bet over $50 is big and trying not to fold everybody when they have AA/KK. A lot of villains will look uncomfortably in this situation no matter what they have because they realize they playing for their entire stack.

Unless villain is very aggressive/bluffy 50% is very optimistic here. There are a lot who would throw in the first raise here fairly wide if the pot was limped that are never squeezing OOP in a bloated pot.

Level 1 thinkers are not thinking about the dead money in the pot, they are looking at their hand and thinking it's a 3 betting hand. They may or may not take being in the blind into account. Their range is something like AK/QQ+ and has to be weighted towards AA/KK.

The holding.... While I do think Kxs serves the purpose for 3! Bluffing I tend to not feel that way about it for 4! Bluffing. 4!+ Continuing ranges Will tend to be tighter and he's going to have less bad aces in his 4! Call/5! Ship range. I think we risk domination more using Kx as a 4! Than a 3!.

The history.... If I read the op correctly this is the same guy who folded to your 4! Earlier? If so I'd expect him to be coming stronger this time. Obv anything is possible.

Generally K9 isn't in my ep opening range. 7 handed I guess makes it a bit closer but I really view the hand as garbage.

I think it's cool you are thinking about your villains ranges closely and looking to exploit but honestly you seemed to be focused on the wrong things IMO.

Maybe it's just coincidence of recent ops but...You are reasonably deep why so much insistence on creating preflop pots and action that may force you into flipping against your (by your account bad) opponents range for 200bb stacks?

This sizing is too large for a balanced 4betting range. There isn't enough money to come over the top and have any real FE since you are too committed. If villain 5bet shipped over your raise you would be calling 675 to win 1350. If you instead had AKs and the villain turned his KK face up you would still have odds to call. You have about a breakeven call with Axs and only a slightly losing call with Axo.
By sizing smaller your 4bet smaller to like 260 or so, you can 4bet bluff more often since you get a better price and when you have a value hand you leave enough money that V can still bluff shove over your raise. If there isn't this dynamic though and V is likely to just call that is fine too. There isn't enough stack depth left and V will be very -ev attempting to call even a raise to 260 to play fit or fold. The reason to 4bet larger to 325 is if you are trying to exploit a V who does not fold very often to 4bets (or bets in general). In that case just shovel the money in, but in this case it seems like V is unlikely to call a 4bet either because he was 3bet bluffing or because he realizes how much strength a 4bet is representing.

As for this hand, I don't believe V 3bet sizing is too small. It is large enough to put you in a tough spot with respect to 4bet sizing. As you have already realized 4betting to 500 and folding to a shove is kind of ridiculous given the price you have given yourself. You only need 23.6% equity to call and you will have a +ev call even against a range of JJ+ with 24.9% equity. If you plan is to 4bet to 500 and call it off then you might as well just shove to put max pressure on smaller pocket pairs that might mistakenly believe that they have FE against the 500 raise.

Even with a smaller raise to 420 gives you 2.65:1 requiring 27.3% equity and committing you or coming very close. The profitability of this spot is almost completely based on how much air V has and how much FE you have. If V only 3bets AK,AQ and, 88+ while calling it off with his whole range then you can't bluff. If he has a lot of air and folds weaker PPs to your shove such that you have 66% FE then you get the pot (330 * .66) when he folds for an ev of 217.8. If he calls with AK and JJ+, then you have 26% equity and get back 613, but raised another 975 for an ev of -362 when called. So (330 * .66) + (-362 * .34) = making a shove +ev for $94.

The calling range of AK and JJ+ has 33 combos with your blocker and therefore he needs to have 64 combos of air and hands too weak to call for this calculation to be accurate. I think this is probably a best case scenario though and you are probably getting called more often given that you already 4bet previously. However, the focus should not be on having a better hand to 4bet bluff unless you expect to be called very light (and then you probably can't 4bet bluff anyway) since having AQo only gives you 2% more equity against a tight calling range of AK and JJ+.

2/5 isn't a goldmine because it's profitable to open K9s from ep, then 4bet/call with it. 2/5 is a goldmine because somehow people can think along these lines. Not thread worthy, fold pre both times.

I only read half your post, in a rush, I'll get to the rset of it later. But as a quick important note... don't 4 bet lite if it puts in 30-40% of your stack because it commits you to calling a 5 bet.

+1.

Pre was a FPS mistake.

Pay attention kiddo. The table is 7 handed, I am UTG+1 aka 4th to act aka squarely in MP as I have 3 players ahead of me and 3 players behind me.

Please take your trolling elsewhere. I am sorry that you don't think there is value in re-stealing a steal, but I do, and this is a strategy forum, so I think I will carry on with the discussion if that is okay with you?

Why is PF a mistake? We are 7 handed, I am in MP, I have a read that UTG (V2) is a spewtard monkey on tilt ($500 stack)

"V2 was the primary target for the hand. He's been felted once, has a VPIP around 50% and has been observed open raising and 3! preflop with hands as bad as 53s, 75o, etc. hitting some miracle two pairs and generally being an unpredictable wild card."

So the plan is to get this HU with V2 who will defend the straddle and possibly re-raise. K9s is obviously not the best hand in the world, but it's good enough (in my opinion) to target a player whose stack is 100% going to 0 within the next 20-30 minutes.

I made an adjustment on the fly. I obviously did not expect to get 3 callers behind me followed by V1's raise. After V1's raise, I consider another adjustment: "how likely do I think it is that V1 is stealing light here?"

I thought it was pretty likely, and then tried to consider my equity vs. a range of 88+. I can pretty confidently say based on my read that this player is wider than AA-KK and AK. I ran K9s vs. TT+/AK in Equilab and it spit out 26.9%, 29.9% vs. 88+/AK.

So I don't know ... I don't really see how this is FPS when I am trying to exploit a weak player with position on him.

johnnyBuz, so if table was 9 handed, you should raise K9s from MP?

No one is trolling you, just that you rather hear how awesome it could be to play K9s by bluffing and repping KK+.

Read up what mpethy said in another thread relating to 3betting light (might be hard to dig through to find it).

One mistake will take you forever to make back the EV, if ever.

You're absolutely correct that a good player will have a higher hourly in a 2/5 game than a 1/2 game, but the reasons are primarily: higher stakes (even if your WR in BB/hr is cut in half by moving up, you still make more at 2/5), deeper stacks (200 BB vs. 100 BB buy-in), and lower effective rake (in terms of BB/100). Play at 2/5 is definitely better, mostly because the ratio of fish to regs is lower, and the good regs are far better than good regs at 1/2.

Quick note on your history hand, with $1k effective stacks, your 4-bet is too large (unless you thought that would look weak). Any decent player should recognize that you aren't 4-bet folding after sticking in 1/3 of your stack. In position, I'd 4-bet to $250 here (OOP I'd make it $275).

With a straddle here, I don't mind raising a hand like this, especially in a shorter game, to isolate the weak straddler, but I'd make it larger (~$50) if that's your goal. Once you get 3-bet, this is just a fold. Yes, V can be squeezing light here, but you can't attack every single 3-bet just because it's potentially light, and it's always possible, even if unlikely, that someone behind you has a big hand.

Don't like the open in a straddle pot from EP where you are going to get 3b a lot in late position because of all the dead money, especially if you are opening a lot of hands. That said, if you are going to 4b here, I'm probably just shoving for $1000. 4b/folding half your stack should never even enter your mind, that would be terrible since you will always have the equity needed to call unless V turns over AA, and even then it's somewhat close.

If you are going to 4b in this spot, I think a shove should be your entire range. With all of that dead money, it looks more bluffy when you have a super premium hand and even if V calls, you have decent equity against everything but AA/KK and AK. I think you will somewhat often run into V's behind you that flat big pairs though, so I'm probably just folding this one most of the time. If you have a good read that nobody behind you is that strong and V's range is somewhat wide, jam it in and let him decide. He's probably not loving a call-off of another $800 with AK even though he probably isn't folding this time.

You've gotten some great responses, so apologies if some of this is a poor rewording of advice already received...

I think it's great that you've analyzed the differences between 1/2 and 2/5 and throw your thoughts out on the forum to be confirmed or disputed, as it seems like an ideal way to improve, but don't forget 30 hours ain't squat and your observations should be in pencil, not pen.

For me, primary differences at a typical table for what it's worth:
2/5 more aggressive on all streets
2/5 greater average stack depth
2/5 higher number of 2nd level thinkers
2/5 higher number of winning regs

Obviously, difference can vary by venue/region. YMMV

You've joined the club opening K9s in MP. I generally open this hand in the CO ONLY if button is a nit, otherwise opening on the button only.

more squeezing? yes, but many tables not much at all in my experience, but yes, more than 1/2
more 3! ? somewhat, but range is still often KK+

as you would've with KTs

you've gotten some great responses here already. Wincet nailed it, especially pointing out how little your equity improves from K9s to AQo against a tight range.

after I would 4! in spots like this often enough with AK, I learned the hard way how tight 3! ranges can be, even when I thought they appeared to be loose at first blush. typically, the upside of exploiting a large 3!/f range is much smaller than the downside when the 3! range is actually much tighter than we realized (ESPECIALLY at 200bb vs 100bb)

the only reason to consider a 4! here is if V 3!/f more than 60% AND none of the other Vs are lying in the weeds with strength. an Ace in our hand for a better blocker and for suckout odds would help too.

Let's look at a few EVs for KTs....

V folds 75% of range, and you gii against JJ+,AK
EV = $142

V range QQ+,AK and you gii against whole range
EV = ($416)

V range KK+ and you gii against whole range
EV = ($611)

hopefully those numbers give some pause.

It depends.

All joking aside, never say never. As a default, K9s is not in my MP open raising range, but if circumstances dictate that it might be the best way to target a tilting sinking ship who will be felted imminently and will 100% defend his straddle, then sure, I am going to take a shot and try to isolate him.

So I watched the Baluga Whale seminar on 3! (and read the "3!/4!/5! Game" in Miller's SSNLHE) and it made me think "If these range/leveling wars are taking place online, why can't we translate some of that to LLSNL?" I know those guys are playing thousands of hands, so small edges add up over time, but given how poorly people react live to 3! and 4!'s, we should theoretically have a bigger edge assuming our stack off range is strong enough, correct?

Wincet did some math above which seems to show this hand is very close, if not +EV to stack off with vs. a wider range than most people seem to think is plausible. Then you factor in the dead money and it seems like we've got an interesting dilemma on our hands. I have a snug image, am raising UTG and have a blocker to KK. Can he have AA-QQ/AK here? Yes, absolutely. But can he have TT, 99, 88, KQ, etc.? I think so, based on my reads.

this in a nut shell.

A 3.5x(straddle) UTG+1 in 2/5 is basically announcing to everyone else down wind "I have either pocket dueces or 67s, and I will fold to a squeeze".

If conditions warranted the raise, raise it to 50 like you have KK. The "sweetener" will only work if you get 6 callers and flop the nut flush

as for the 4bet/fold, I'm not 4bet bluffing over all those people, that is something I would do if I open the button to 25 and a pro 4bets me out of the BB to 80, if I know he's most likely light I would 4bet fold as long as I'm not putting more than about 23% of my stack in by doing it (and also as long as I have dog crap).

Almost never in 2/5. Even subconsciously, EP raises get respect from players that don't think about ranges. Let alone ones that do. You're falling prey to the "they're playing back at me" syndrome. While there are some at 2/5 that do, they are so bad at it you'd never have to make a thread about the decision making process.

LLSNL players are extremely unbalanced, and the best adjustment to a lot of the unbalanced plays isn't to play into them.

I 3! a whole lot wider than AA-KK and AK (for exactly this reason) and I'm sure I'm not the only player at LLSNL doing this. It almost feels like there is a super secret 2+2 cabal that wants everyone to believe a 3! is only AA-KK or AK because that is what EVERYBODY on here says. Obviously, I am being incredibly facetious with that remark but the point remains.

Anyway, I tank/folded, the rest of the table folded and the incredibly uncomfortable looking V could not have been more happy to turn over 99 and say "I was so scared you were going to raise me and I'd have to fold again."

Start playing back to 3bet and let us know how it goes.

Regardless of results it's a pretty spewy 4b without specific reads and knowledge of V tendencies. With all of the dead money I don't hate a 4b in this spot since you're never in horrible shape unless V has KK+ and/or calls off 200bb stacks with AK. I know every time you get squeezed in 2/5 it's real tempting to just jam it in there with any decent hand and see what happens since V's are capable of squeezing and 3b wider at 2/5 than 1/2, but long-term I don't think it's great.

I think this is a great thread. However:

1) I also think this a fold the first time around. If we had a weak limper in front of us, fine, then we can probably raise to iso him. However, a straddle blind is very different from a limper, because he's shown no interest in the hand and hasn't ruled out the strong part of his range by failing to raise. So there's a good chance that he will fold rather than making a bad call and there's a small chance he has us crushed. In addition, we still have to run the gauntlet of the other 5 players at the table to get heads-up. So generally I fold this.

2) In order to decide if a 4bet bluff is going to be profitable here, you really need to think about his range. Assume he's 3betting something like {88, AK, AQs, 10% lighter} (36 combos of PPs, 12 of AK, 4 of AQs, 5.2 combos of bluffs, 57.2 total combos}. Assume he jams with {JJ+, AKs} (21 combos of PPs, 3 combos of AKs, 24 total combos} and folds the rest. That means he's folding 58% of his hands and we have a very thin call of a shove. We are risking $465 to win $347, which means we need to succeed 57.2% of the time to show an immediate profit. In addition, we salvage something like $30 of equity the 42% of the time he shoves (and once in a blue moon maybe he shoves a bluff). So if those ranges are reasonable, 4bet/call > 4bet/fold > fold. Obviously this is quite thin, so any errors in the range could switch those conclusions around.

3) I assume that a shoving range that includes K9s is unbalanced, so you could consider whether there are better hands to run this play with (assuming you have a limited budget of 4bet bluffs, which may or may not be true). Axs is probably better (especially if the x doesn't block a bluff target), since it has better equity if he shoves (although it blocks one combo of AQs).